I just finished reading Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting
Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters by Dr.
Helen Smith. For those unfamiliar with misandry, paternity fraud,
sperm jackers, modern Coverture or debtor’s prison for unemployed
fathers, Men On Strike will be a shock.
Dr. Smith’s thesis is that the incentives for male engagement in modern society have shifted to the point where men are rationally choosing to opt out of marriage, fatherhood and the economy. Dr. Smith paints a world where men judge a culture that treats them all as potential pedophiles as one not worth participating in.
Dr. Smith is most convincing when discussing the judicial system. Men should have equal rights in family courts. And no man should ever be thrown into debtors prison or denied legal representation simply because he lost his job and couldn’t pay child support. No man should be forced to pay child support when the mother lied about paternity. These issues are simply outrageous.
Yet, the title of the book suggests that men are on strike. A strike implies that men have some level of organization. And there simply isn’t an organized men’s movement in the US. At least not one that the general public can identify. And the best Dr. Smith can do to support her title is to explain why she thinks there should be an active men’s movement.
Beyond the title, Dr. Smith’s writing style will be off-putting to some. She uses terms she made up that she doesn’t define until towards the end of her book. She’s a Libertarian and is critical of other view points. And she assumes that the readers are on her “side" which allows her to be lazy in her arguments.
Even worse, it’s hard not to notice a cherry picking in Dr. Smith’s informal research. She interviews almost exclusively men from coastal regions and extrapolates their answers for the whole country. She avoids the mid-west completely in her male case studies. And she is at her least persuasive when she gets lost in her blog comment’s echo chamber.
Men On Strike could have been improved if Dr. Smith hadn’t expressed male problems in just negative terms. Instead of only interviewing men with an axe to grind, Dr. Smith could have expanded the narrative by:
·interviewing members of happy, healthy relationships for insights on why they continue to function successfully despite 21st century realities
·Providing men criteria to use to identify women worth getting involved with
·Getting a reaction from women on her thesis, pro and con
One of the cornerstones of Dr. Smith’s argument is a Pew Research Center study that shows that 37% of women think that having a successful marriage is an important life goal compared to just 29% of men. Dr. Helen focuses on the delta between men and women who want a successful marriage as if that is the most significant finding of the study. What is striking to me is that so few women want a “successful marriage."
Additionally, how trustworthy is this study? The language used is vague to the point of having no meaning. Define “successful marriage," and an “important goal." Was there a follow-up study? Has anyone else replicated these kinds of poll results?
Further, the United States is a large, diverse country. And while discussing the decline in marriage rates, it’s just not possible to make generalizations. Marriage trends are vastly different when separated by class, race, geography and education. Yet none of those nuances are presented in Men On Strike.
On an emotional level, Dr. Smith celebrates men who refuse to get married. But she somehow misses that for a vast majority of men, being single is not great either. There is a lot of pressure in the single world and a lot of loneliness. Being single is not all fun and games.
Potshot rebuttals:
Men On Strike: men aren’t going to college
Response: college degrees offer poor ROI and men are positioning themselves for the post higher education bubble without six figure debt
MOS: men are bashed in movies and TV
Response: The nation is no longer hooked up to one cable. There is so much choice in modern media that no one message can resonate
MOS: men no longer have any public space, outside of sports arenas
Response: men have moved online
MOS: men don’t want children anymore because of legal entanglement issues
Response: incentives to have children are evolutionary and not simply a social construct
MOS: men don’t want to get married because women have the legal upper hand
Response: many men and women are driven by their religion to both get married and have a family (despite the risks)
Where Dr. Smith misses the boat most is on demographics. Most of the people in power are baby boomers. They grew up during a radical shift in sexual relations. Boomers are currently at their apex of political power. And it’s not clear that their sexual values will continue. The next generation of Feminists won’t be able to count on ubiquitous media propaganda and post-bubble educational institutions.
Let’s not forget the women. In Men On Strike women are raised from birth to hate men and are taught how to use them for their own ends. It’s as if women have no free agency and are influenced by cartoons more than their families, personal experiences or their religious institutions. In Men On Strike Dr. Smith does to women exactly what she complains other authors do to men; they are presented as cutout forces of evil. The real irony here is that Dr. Smith is yet another woman preaching at men to change.
Having said all that, Men On Strike is worth reading. It’s entertaining and a good introduction to the challenges facing men today. It could have been more in-depth and less preachy. And unfortunately, the men who could most use this book, men who are getting shafted by our legal system, probably won’t run across it until it’s too late to help them.
Dr. Smith’s thesis is that the incentives for male engagement in modern society have shifted to the point where men are rationally choosing to opt out of marriage, fatherhood and the economy. Dr. Smith paints a world where men judge a culture that treats them all as potential pedophiles as one not worth participating in.
Dr. Smith is most convincing when discussing the judicial system. Men should have equal rights in family courts. And no man should ever be thrown into debtors prison or denied legal representation simply because he lost his job and couldn’t pay child support. No man should be forced to pay child support when the mother lied about paternity. These issues are simply outrageous.
Yet, the title of the book suggests that men are on strike. A strike implies that men have some level of organization. And there simply isn’t an organized men’s movement in the US. At least not one that the general public can identify. And the best Dr. Smith can do to support her title is to explain why she thinks there should be an active men’s movement.
Beyond the title, Dr. Smith’s writing style will be off-putting to some. She uses terms she made up that she doesn’t define until towards the end of her book. She’s a Libertarian and is critical of other view points. And she assumes that the readers are on her “side" which allows her to be lazy in her arguments.
Even worse, it’s hard not to notice a cherry picking in Dr. Smith’s informal research. She interviews almost exclusively men from coastal regions and extrapolates their answers for the whole country. She avoids the mid-west completely in her male case studies. And she is at her least persuasive when she gets lost in her blog comment’s echo chamber.
Men On Strike could have been improved if Dr. Smith hadn’t expressed male problems in just negative terms. Instead of only interviewing men with an axe to grind, Dr. Smith could have expanded the narrative by:
·interviewing members of happy, healthy relationships for insights on why they continue to function successfully despite 21st century realities
·Providing men criteria to use to identify women worth getting involved with
·Getting a reaction from women on her thesis, pro and con
One of the cornerstones of Dr. Smith’s argument is a Pew Research Center study that shows that 37% of women think that having a successful marriage is an important life goal compared to just 29% of men. Dr. Helen focuses on the delta between men and women who want a successful marriage as if that is the most significant finding of the study. What is striking to me is that so few women want a “successful marriage."
Additionally, how trustworthy is this study? The language used is vague to the point of having no meaning. Define “successful marriage," and an “important goal." Was there a follow-up study? Has anyone else replicated these kinds of poll results?
Further, the United States is a large, diverse country. And while discussing the decline in marriage rates, it’s just not possible to make generalizations. Marriage trends are vastly different when separated by class, race, geography and education. Yet none of those nuances are presented in Men On Strike.
On an emotional level, Dr. Smith celebrates men who refuse to get married. But she somehow misses that for a vast majority of men, being single is not great either. There is a lot of pressure in the single world and a lot of loneliness. Being single is not all fun and games.
Potshot rebuttals:
Men On Strike: men aren’t going to college
Response: college degrees offer poor ROI and men are positioning themselves for the post higher education bubble without six figure debt
MOS: men are bashed in movies and TV
Response: The nation is no longer hooked up to one cable. There is so much choice in modern media that no one message can resonate
MOS: men no longer have any public space, outside of sports arenas
Response: men have moved online
MOS: men don’t want children anymore because of legal entanglement issues
Response: incentives to have children are evolutionary and not simply a social construct
MOS: men don’t want to get married because women have the legal upper hand
Response: many men and women are driven by their religion to both get married and have a family (despite the risks)
Where Dr. Smith misses the boat most is on demographics. Most of the people in power are baby boomers. They grew up during a radical shift in sexual relations. Boomers are currently at their apex of political power. And it’s not clear that their sexual values will continue. The next generation of Feminists won’t be able to count on ubiquitous media propaganda and post-bubble educational institutions.
Let’s not forget the women. In Men On Strike women are raised from birth to hate men and are taught how to use them for their own ends. It’s as if women have no free agency and are influenced by cartoons more than their families, personal experiences or their religious institutions. In Men On Strike Dr. Smith does to women exactly what she complains other authors do to men; they are presented as cutout forces of evil. The real irony here is that Dr. Smith is yet another woman preaching at men to change.
Having said all that, Men On Strike is worth reading. It’s entertaining and a good introduction to the challenges facing men today. It could have been more in-depth and less preachy. And unfortunately, the men who could most use this book, men who are getting shafted by our legal system, probably won’t run across it until it’s too late to help them.
